Book Review
Oct. 28th, 2018 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Night Strangers
by Chris Bohjalian
This creepy horror novel was pretty much everything I look for in horror - haunted houses, sinister townspeople who are definitely plotting something, ambiguity between the intrusion of the supernatural and a character's mental instability, and a truly chilling ending. The Lintons - Emily, Chip, and their twin daughters Hallie and Garnet - have moved from Philadelphia to the small town of Bethel, New Hampshire to start anew after Chip, an airline pilot, flies a plane that crashes into a lake, killing 39 of the people aboard. However, their new home, a quaint old Victorian, harbors secrets centering around a mysterious bolted-up door in the basement. And the initially welcoming women of the town are not necessarily what they seem.
I really enjoyed this book. Bohjalian creates a lot of tension and anxiety with the characters and plot. The Lintons are really likeable, and all of them are doing their best to cope with the new realities of their lives after the plane crash and to help each other, which really raises the stakes. There are several wonderful moments of heart-pounding suspense and also some great stretches of slower-burning suspense. Although I pretty much figured out what was going on with the women of the town early on, I still enjoyed the way Bohjalian handled the slow reveal. The creepiness of everything just never let up.
by Chris Bohjalian
This creepy horror novel was pretty much everything I look for in horror - haunted houses, sinister townspeople who are definitely plotting something, ambiguity between the intrusion of the supernatural and a character's mental instability, and a truly chilling ending. The Lintons - Emily, Chip, and their twin daughters Hallie and Garnet - have moved from Philadelphia to the small town of Bethel, New Hampshire to start anew after Chip, an airline pilot, flies a plane that crashes into a lake, killing 39 of the people aboard. However, their new home, a quaint old Victorian, harbors secrets centering around a mysterious bolted-up door in the basement. And the initially welcoming women of the town are not necessarily what they seem.
I really enjoyed this book. Bohjalian creates a lot of tension and anxiety with the characters and plot. The Lintons are really likeable, and all of them are doing their best to cope with the new realities of their lives after the plane crash and to help each other, which really raises the stakes. There are several wonderful moments of heart-pounding suspense and also some great stretches of slower-burning suspense. Although I pretty much figured out what was going on with the women of the town early on, I still enjoyed the way Bohjalian handled the slow reveal. The creepiness of everything just never let up.
